With Good Reason

The personal and professional lives of musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane can’t be divorced from the struggle for racial equality. Music scholar Antonio Garcia (Virginia Commonwealth University) says they all contributed in significant ways to interracial understanding and social progress. Also featured: The composers of the Civil Rights anthem “Lift Every Voice and Sing” also created musical theater at the turn of the century, transforming the public image of African American characters and performers. Paula Marie Seniors (Virginia Tech) looks at the lives of the composers Bob Cole, J. Rosamond Johnson, and James Weldon Johnson, whose work helped break down stereotypical portrayals of black Americans. Also: The skilled oratory of civil rights leader James Farmer was shaped in part as a member of the legendary 1935 all African American debate team portrayed in the film, The Great Debaters. Timothy O’Donnell (University of Mary Washington) is leading an effort to help historically black colleges and universities field high-quality debate teams on crucial public policy issues. And: During segregation, African American funeral directors were historically among the few black individuals who were economically independent. In her book, To Serve the Living, Suzanne Smith (George Mason University) shows how their financial freedom gave them the ability to support the struggle for civil rights as well as bury the dead.

For every ten students who go to community college for an associate’s degree, only one graduates in three years. Stan Jones, president of Complete Colleges America says it’s time to overhaul the community college system. Math professor Randy Cone (Virginia Military Institute) says that his students are less math-literate today than they were fifteen years ago. He’s looking at new ways to bring students up to speed for college level math. Plus: Have you ever wondered just how big your feet would need to be to allow you to walk on water, or how about the amount of time lost in a person’s life for every cigarette smoked? Physicist Lawrence Weinstein (Old Dominion University) answers these brain teasers and many others by using a process called “guesstimation.” Also: David Wright (Tidewater Community College) uses some of the gravity-defying rides at Busch Gardens amusement park to teach the principles of physics. He says an understanding of basic physics helps make sense of the world around us.

The lives of thirteen people are featured in a new book–but the real star is a 1957 Chevrolet Townsman wagon. Auto Biography, tells the true story of the car and its many owners. Author Earl Swift is a fellow at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. Also featured: “Bath salts” used to conjure up an image of a relaxing day at the spa. But lately, the terms carries a whole new connotation. Poison center director Rutherfoord Rose (Virginia Commonwealth University) says the new synthetic drug induces strange and violent behaviors. And: The blue dye of the modern rape kit doesn’t work on women with dark skin. Kathryn Laughon (University of Virginia) is researching a new dye that will work on all skin tones. Plus: The last decade has seen an increase in the rate of college women who engage in high-risk drinking, especially when they drink at fraternity parties. Jill Russett (Christopher Newport University) is studied the trend. Also featured: Much has been written about the way our culture raises girls. But what about boys? Popular books such as Raising Cain and The War on Boys suggest they are either weakened by feminism or stifled by hyper-masculine ideals about what men should be. Matt Pricket (Longwood University) says neither extreme tells the whole story.

In his new novel Tomorrow City, Kirk Kjeldsen (Virginia Commonwealth University) tells the story of an ex-con who is trying to reinvent himself in Shanghai, a city that has perhaps reinvented itself more than any other city in history. Kjeldsen recently moved to Shanghai, which he describes as “more American than America.” And: Everyone in America should understand what’s happening in China. That’s the message from economist and former Reagan advisor Deborah Hewitt (College of William and Mary). Hewitt says the changes taking place now in China are already affecting American businesses and households. Later in the show: Filmmaker Sonali Gulati (Virginia Commonwealth University) used to spot telemarketers by the way they mispronounced her Indian name. But when they started to get the name right, she knew something was up. American companies have long outsourced telemarketing and customer service jobs to India where workers compete for jobs at giant call centers. Gulati visited a call center in India and discovered how Indian telemarketers acquire American names and accents, and learn about American movies, music, and TV. Her film Nalini by Day, Nancy by Night is a journey into that world.

Most of us learned in history class that slavery in the U.S. ended with the Thirteenth Amendment. But the trade in human beings—for sex and labor—is actually the fastest growing criminal industry in the world today, and it’s happening just below the surface of our everyday lives. Author Corban Addison confronts human trafficking in his novel A Walk Across the Sun. Also featured: Since World War II, the American “H2” program has brought hundreds of thousands of Jamaican men to the United States to do difficult and dangerous work for some of the nation’s largest agricultural corporations. Cindy Hahamovitch tells the story of these workers in her book No Man’s Land. Later in the show: New research examines how the traumatic events of WWII were addressed in German history textbooks after the war. Brian Puaca says the textbooks first depicted Germans as victims, but the schoolbooks gradually incorporated a frank and honest account of National Socialism and Nazi atrocities. He challenges those who have argued that the Germans have long repressed their memories of the Second World War—both in terms of their own suffering and the crimes committed in their name. And: It is generally thought that German intellectuals did not start examining the Nazi period until the 1960s, some twenty years after World War II. But Mark Clark identifies four German intellectuals—Thomas Mann, Karl Jaspers, Friedrich Meinecke, and Bertolt Brecht—whose work directly confronted the disastrous rule of the Third Reich immediately after the war.

The U.S. State Department has estimated that 1 million children each year are exploited by the global sex industry. Through a new novel, one Virginia man seeks to draw attention to this modern day slavery. Allison Quantz has the story.

A Virginia writer has just won the Midwest Book Award for his novel set in small-town Tennessee. After a tornado, the tiny Southern town must deal with the ghosts of its past--both real and imagined. Allison Quantz has more.

A tornado that devastated Fayetteville, Tennessee the week author Clint McCown was born is the setting for his latest award-winning novel, Haints. The real-life tornado reached wind speeds up to 260 miles per hour and damaged or destroyed 1,820 buildings. Also: Biologist Wally Smith fell in love with hiking when he was in high school. Now he and his biology students have created online trail guides for others to explore the beauty of the Appalachian foothills. And: The jaguar is the largest cat in the Americas, but little is known about the behavior of this endangered creature. Marcella Kelly spends four months each year in Belize studying jaguars using camera trapping. Also featured: Anthropologist Peter Metcalf spent part of the 1970s living in the longhouse communities of Borneo. The longhouse was the center of life for the Orang Ulu people of Borneo, but the destruction of the Indonesian rain forest has destroyed that way of life.

New research shows one key to curtailing West Nile disease may lie in increasing the diversity of birds. John Swaddle (College of William and Mary) says attracting a variety of birds to your back yard may actually lower your chance of getting the disease. Also featured: Ann and Rob Simpson (Lord Fairfax Community College) are biologists who also happen to be a professional husband-and-wife wildlife photography team whose work has taken them from Yosemite National Park to Madagascar. Their books on the national parks promote ecological use of natural habitats and environmental stewardship. And: Dick Rowe (Virginia Military Institute) says birds can alert other birds not only to the degree of danger present but also what kind of threat is out there. Later in the show: From potable water to the forgotten impact of things like weather and horses on the outcome of the war, With Good Reason brings you highlights from the 2011 Signature Conference of the Virginia Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War Commission. Some of the country’s most eminent Civil War scholars including James Robertson Jr. (Virginia Tech), William C. Davis (Virginia Tech) and equine specialist John M. Bowen discuss the forgotten elements of the conflict.

With the end of the War in Iraq, tens of thousands of soldiers have returned home, and many of them are going to college. But the transition to academia can be hard. Alexis Hart and Roger Thompson are traveling the country, coaching professors on how to welcome and support veterans. And: Kurt Vonnegut’s experience as a World War II POW informed his writing decades later. A new biography, by Charles J. Shields, about the iconic countercultural author is called And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut, A Life. The man who emerges in the book is not the man his readers believed him to be. Later in the show: When President Ronald Reagan traveled to Normandy in 1984 to mark the 40th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, a young army officer, Casey Brower, was with him and was deeply moved. Casey is now General Casey Brower and takes cadets on tours of the American cemeteries for the fallen soldiers in France. The cadets are of the same age as many of the young men who made the sacrifice in the D-Day assault. Also featured: The Great Kanto Earthquake struck Japan in 1923 and killed more than 100,000 people. In the chaos after the disaster, rumors circulated that led hysterical Japanese vigilantes to lynch thousands of Korean and Chinese guest workers. Eric Han explores how modern Japan’s reaction to the 2011 Tohoku earthquake reflects how that nation has changed in the intervening decades.

Much bigger than technology or classroom space, the most important factor in determining student success is having a good teacher. In two 15-minute sessions, Bob Pianta (University of Virginia) can tell whether a teacher is good or bad—regardless of their subject matter. Plus: Heralded by Time as one of the ten best college presidents, Freeman Hrabowski (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) has helped build UMBC’s reputation as a top school for students of color in STEM fields. And: Surprisingly, sometimes the problem in math class is not with numbers, but with words. Anne Charity Hudley (College of William and Mary) believes teachers need to be more aware of how cultural language differences can put some students at a disadvantage in the classroom. Later in the show: Brain injury is more common than you might think. 1.5 million people suffer an injury each year in this country alone. Michael Friedlander is the director of the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, where they’re looking for ways to help the brain heal itself. Also featured: What happens when you connect a computer to actual brain cells? From a glove that interprets sign language to a better voice-controlled wheelchair, bioengineer Nathalia Peixoto (George Mason University) uses electrodes, prosthetic devices, and microchips to help improve people’s lives.

Have more children, don’t stress out about parenting, and spend less time on activities that you and your children don’t enjoy. This is the advice of Bryan Caplan (George Mason University), author of the new book Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think. And: Children love borrowing books from the library. They also love playing with toys. So why don’t we have toy libraries? Julie Ozanne (Virginia Tech) studies toy libraries in Europe and New Zealand and found that toy libraries offer multiple benefits for children, their parents, and their communities. Later in the show: Historians have long held that children of 17th and 18th century Europe were thought of as incomplete adults who were not yet worthy of love or compassion. But historian Michael Galgano (James Madison University) says children of this time were actually celebrated and loved. Also featured: Elementary school teachers may want to encourage a noisier classroom this fall. Adam Winsler’s (George Mason University) recent research shows that 5-year-olds perform better on motor tasks when they talk to themselves out loud than when they are silent. And: Infants come into the world equipped with an enormous capacity to trust, which is essential to rapid learning. Vikran Jaswal (University of Virginia) says part of the challenge of childhood is learning when to question. - See more at: http://withgoodreasonradio.org/2013/06/the-kids-are-alright-2/#sthash.QW6PitSm.dpuf

Sometimes all it takes to get kids excited about science is a bag full of eyeballs. Robert Tai (University of Virginia) has spent years studying when and why kids fall in love with science. Henry Alan Rowe (Norfolk State University) uses fire and static electricity to draw students into chemistry. Plus: Science class matters even for kids who grow up to be writers or bankers. Tina Grotzer (Harvard University) explains how science can help kids understand the causes of what’s going on around them. And: Students who don’t love science class, might find their way via…math? Eric Pyle (James Madison University) says combining math class with earth sciences can make both subjects better. Also featured: Bruce Greyson (University of Virginia) is one of the first researchers to gather empirical data on near-death experiences using scientific methods. Although these experiences vary from one person to another, they often include feelings of comfort and lack of pain, a sensation of leaving the body, and a deep understanding of both past and future events.

Nearly a third of college students in the United States are first-generation—meaning their parents and grandparents didn’t go. For many of these students, entering academia can feel like moving to a foreign land. Lee Ward (James Madison University), author of First Generation College Students, says colleges should embrace these students. Also featured: Most writing teachers correct nonstandard sentences like “My brother and me drives the same truck.” But Amy Clark (University of Virginia’s College at Wise) believes it’s important for her Appalachian students to hold onto to their home voices. Amy is coeditor of a new book, called Talking Appalachian: Voice, Identity, and Community. Later in the show: Based on experience as a teacher, and on her work in neuroscience, Abigail Norfleet James (Germanna Community College) believes boys and girls have very different learning styles. She shares teaching techniques that have helped when teaching all boys or all girls in the classroom. Also featured: When Jonathan Dickinson’s father was diagnosed with Huntington’s disease—a fatal neurodegenerative disorder—Jonathan decided to take him on an epic adventure: a motorcycle journey through the Himalayas in India.

An entire generation of Americans grew up knowing no other president than Franklin Roosevelt, who served four terms and led them through the Depression and World War II. Pulitzer Prize winning FDR biographer David Kennedy (Stanford University) gives a spellbinding account of this ebullient man of constant cheer who crafted the New Deal and the social security system. Kennedy and University of Virginia political scientist Sid Milkis spoke at a recent conference held by the Center for American Studies at Christopher Newport University. Also featured: Faiths of the Founding Fathers. Europeans who traveled to the thirteen colonies brought countless strains of Christianity with them, and the freedom of the wild frontier allowed many new sects and congregations to flourish. David Holmes (College of William and Mary) gives us insights into the religious beliefs of the founding fathers.